


Spun Sugar

by justanotherStonyfan



Series: Honey Honey [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon-typical peril, First Meetings, M/M, Mentions of Suicidal Thoughts, Original Character Death(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-04-30 22:09:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14506509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanotherStonyfan/pseuds/justanotherStonyfan
Summary: How to win friends and influence people.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, if you're still with me!
> 
> In this installment, there's a bit of character development, and a bit of story development. The change in tags isn't huge but is important – today's episode include's Steve's day job, and Steve's day job is dangerous. Please heed warnings – as well as the usual, there's canon-typical peril, blood, and an OC character death today, because Avengers save who they can and _'sometimes that doesn't mean everybody.'_
> 
> Thank you to (alphabetically) Cherry, PetronellaRose and SplinteredWinter for providing help with words, phonetics, tags and cheerleading, and everybody else who's shown an interest too :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I'm at your place, dumbass!” Becca answers. “Fuckin' let me in before I break down-”
> 
> “I'm not there,” James tells her, sitting up in bed.
> 
> Ugh, the sun may not be streaming in but it's light enough, thanks very much.
> 
> He can hear the wheels turning in Becca's head.
> 
> “Whaddya mean you're not here, where are you then?”
> 
> James chews his lip and then figures it can't hurt to tell her.
> 
> “I'm at my boyfriend's.”
> 
> There's an even longer silence than usual, and he can actually hear the stuff going on around her. Somebody's leaving an apartment near his.
> 
> “Boy you better count yourself fuckin' lucky your phone doesn't have GPS trackers on it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter!  
> “Birds in their little nests agree” comes from a poem [written by Isaac Watts in 1715 ](https://writingexplained.org/idiom-dictionary/birds-in-their-little-nests-agree), and became a now-seldom used idiom meaning, basically, 'stop squabbling.' It was taught to me by my Nan, who was born in the early 20th century. She left me many things, my favourites of which are the memories I have of her. 
> 
> A Captain America [really did misjudge a swing and go into the side of a building](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/custom/Blog_Images/CapRusso.jpg), but it wasn't Steve Rogers. Still though, would you put it past him?

**Friday**

Between them – or, rather, because of Steve - James has had quite an eventful week. 

On Monday morning, when Steve packed James chicken satay, peach iced-tea, and a treacle tart (!!!!!!), he waited for James to text him at lunch and then _rang_ him back – right in the middle of James' lunch, surrounded by his colleagues (well, surrounded by Amy,) on a phone that James hadn't even known was in his pocket. Which is unsurprising given that he couldn't afford the _next gen StarkPhone_ holy _Shit!?_

“Wow,” Amy says, and James kind of looks at her, mouth agape.

 _“This one is synched to your workstation, and you can use it to speak to Jarvis, who'll connect you to me,”_ Steve said. _“If something happens to me, just speak to Jarvis like you'd speak to Siri or Bambi, and he'll sort you out. Alright? Same if you need help – real help. I mean, we can't help if you missed your stop on the subway but if you need Avengers? You tell Jarvis. Got it?”_

James had been speechless for a moment or two, but he'd nodded a short time later, and then said,

“Yeah,” when he realized Steve couldn't see him.

Steve had spoken to him for a little longer, flirted just enough that James had had to fight off a blush, and then said,

 _“I won't be in tonight – I need to head back to my place in Brooklyn and grab something and then what I'm doing is classified, but I'll be back in the tower tomorrow night, if you want to pack pajamas you won't be wearing.”_

James had jumped at the chance.

And, what was more, he'd gone home that evening to find a small package addressed to him, inside which was a slender black rectangle of high-quality polymer with a small embossed logo.

Steve's cologne.

James had forgotten he'd even asked, but he was still pretty pleased to get it. He sprayed it on one of his pillows immediately.

Tuesday, however, saw James back at the tower, and there was something really awesome about not having to leave for work until about ten minutes before he needed to be there. Plus the _sex_ \- even Amy had noticed the spring in his step. 

“New boyfriend,” he sing-songed, and he gave her plenty of non-specific details without actually ruining any secret identities, or even saying anything that might embarrass either of them later.

But, and here was the thing, James wouldn't be able to spend the next week around Steve – he knew it, Steve knew it. Friday afternoon, he'd be meeting Sam Wilson, aka the Falcon, aka Captain America, and then Steve would be on duty all week.

“You can still come see me,” Steve had said in the dark one night, tucking a strand of James' hair behind his ear. “Just...we won't be able to have sex. In case I need to, y'know. Avenge. I mean, I won't be offended if you want to stay at your place, that's up to you...”

James lifted his head from the pillow and looked at him.

“No thanks,” he said, and Steve laughed.

James elected to get his nightly sniff of Steve's cologne from the source wherever possible, thanks – not that the bottle Steve bought him wasn't nice.

Friday rolls around eventually, however, and James had started to worry the night before.

“Don't fret,” Steve said, as usual, pressing a kiss of James' temple as he cleared up after dinner and, seeing as how Steve was the only one who ever really said it, it did help a little. 

But he didn't sleep well, and he couldn't finish his Rueben next day at lunch (even though it was on freshly made bread. James thought of sad face emojis as he folded the remaining part back into its saran wrap) at lunch. He was due to finish early again, just so that he could get upstairs for around, oh, one? And then he and Steve would have a couple of hours before Captain America showed up, and at least an hour to spend with him.

But he's just leaving when he has a Tesla moment. Actually, he's all the way at the elevator with his bag and his jacket on. 

But all the sims for the Miniature ReCProSys had run oddly when he tried them again, cutting giant chunks out of the holographic overlay and flickering out through what looked like plane conflict. No use disguising a vehicle full of people if a giant isosceles triangle of hood and windshield are visible, as well as at least two terrified passengers, especially not if the whole kit and caboodle is winking in and out all the time.

Still, to be honest, he's not really sure what does it. He's thinking about the whole program, how it must be a mechanical difficulty if it's not the code, because to take it down from five kilometers to like, what, fifty square feet, like a ninety percent reduction in-

And then he's haring back across the office floor, avoiding a couple of superior team-members, slamming himself back down into his chair and willing the logon to go faster.

“Uh, you okay?” Amy asks, but Jarvis through the speakers says,

 _“Welcome back, Mr Barnes,”_ and James shakes his head, disables his lenticular screen and grabs her chair to wheel her over – she's not far enough for her proximity alarm but he points at his screen as he pulls up the code.

“Yes!” he says, eyes wide, grin wider. “You fuckin' bet I am, watch _this_!”

She reaches back and locks her screen, and then wheels herself closer still.

 _This_ is why none of his debugging runs have caught the problem – it wasn't his parameters or his projection system or any of that jazz – James is an idiot. 

“I'm an idiot!” he says, and he goes straight to the environmental mapping and points one finger at the screen. “J'ACCUSE!” 

Five thousand square meters, from the original ReCProSys, down to fifty. And, right there, in the middle of his beautiful variables, is one-point-zero. What a fucking fool.

“One,” he says, punctuating each keystroke with bitten out words. “ _Zero._ Point. Zero!”

He hits 'establish,' hits 'run,' and there it is, _there it is,_ right there on his screen, no problem, no hangup, no glaring great chunk missing, it fucking works!

“I fucking _got it!_ ” he yells and then, as Connor, his immediate superior, says, 

“James, what on Earth-”

James spins on his heel and grins.

“Call Mr Stark,” he says. “I've got something fucking beautiful to show him!”

~

Mr Stark is busy until he finds out it's his R&D secret projects team, and then he says he'll be ten minutes. James then realizes that he's going to a) be super freaking late and b)going to be speaking with Tony Stark in about ten minutes.

Amy gives him a hug and congratulates him, and he shakes his head and hugs her back – it was both of them, they've both done this together, and she laughs and says she's going to get milkshakes while he re-engages his lenticular protection.

He sits in his chair and sighs, smiling, staring at their beautiful baby. Not only can they hide fucking hospitals from enemy fire, they have, basically, created a portable invisibility cloak. James is trying not to let it go to his head, but this is some Fleming, Rowling, Tolkien kind of shit and _they did this!_

He watches the sim run again and again and then he pulls his new phone from his pocket as he locks his screen. People keep coming over and congratulating him, slapping him on the back even if they don't know what he's working on, but he dials his mother first and tells her he can't tell her the good news but it's good, his sister shortly afterward to say the same. 

By the time he's done, he only manages to fire off an _I'll be a little late, sorry! Xx_ to Steve, and then there's a murmur that goes up and people start saying shit like “okay, come on” and “give them a minute” because this is what James' job relies on.

And he's relatively safe – nobody's going to be firing him even if he's totally got the wrong end of the stick. But this is his and Amy's baby, this is something that's already got Tony Stark's attention, and that's...

Yeah, that's definitely Tony Stark coming towards him.

James disables his lenticular screen and steps back just as Mr Stark arrives, and the proximity warning countdown begins.

“No, override - it's me,” Stark says, and the counter disappears. 

All Stark does is click run, and then James and Amy and Connor and Mr Stark are silent for a long few minutes.

Stark pauses the sim, clicks over into the coding and scrolls through. He goes fast, types a search for a few things in particular, and then stands up. 

“If I were the type to shake your hand, I would,” he says. “But I'm not. You're right, it's beautiful. Upstairs'll be in touch.”

And then he snaps his fingers at the screen – which re-engages all of the safeties because that's what the systems do in this place when Stark snaps his fingers at them – and walks off again, and James watches him go before he turns around and stares at Amy.

She looks like she's about to start screaming or something, so he logs off, grabs her hand, excuses himself (and Amy) and drags her out into the corridor. He's, again, grateful for the building's soundproofing because the two of them go nuts for a minute. 

~

Steve opens the door to a James who looks like he's ready to burst.

“I found it!” James tells him, and Steve's brain takes a second or two to catch up, but then,

“You did?” he says, grinning just as widely, and James laughs – he sounds like he's been laughing about it for a while. “Did you have to rewrite it or-”

“No!” James says. “No, it was- I was so stupid- I was one decimal point out, _one!_ ”

Steve shakes his head.

“Okay?” he says. “Great!”

“Yeah!” James says. “I hadn't done the-e-eee-” his smile fades “-I can't tell you what happened.” But then it's back. “But I got it!”

Steve falters for a moment, feeling a little like a yoyo, but then he nods, lets James in.

“Okay!” he says – fair enough, James has a job to keep and blabbing about secret projects won't let him keep it. “Congratulations!”

“Thanks,” James says, pulling his satchel's strap over his head, “Mr Stark came down and everything! Right there, the whole thing- Oh, I wish I could tell you – it's beautiful, it's gorgeous!”

“Should I be jealous?” Steve says wryly, and James bounces back over and kisses him.

“Hi!” he says, breathless, arms around Steve's neck, faces inches apart.

“Hi,” Steve says, fighting a grin. “What would you like to celebrate? Cake?”

James sucks his lower lip into his mouth and scrapes his teeth over it.

“Can I have two things?” he says, raising one eyebrow.

Steve thinks about this for a second or two. They've got hours until Sam shows up, really.

“Go on then,” he says, and then, as James skitters off toward the bedroom, “twist my arm why don't you. Lemme just make a call.”

***

In about five minutes, they'll need to shower. Apart, probably, otherwise they really won't be ready for Sam.

But right now, just lying quietly together in the middle of the afternoon is pretty much the epitome of indulgence, at least as far as Steve's concerned. 

James is smooth and slender, young enough that his litheness is neither wiry nor overt, and Steve doesn't know if his skin is so smooth naturally or whether it's part of James grooming routine but he looks it, that much is certain.

He sweeps one palm down James' back, over his ass and onto the back of his thigh, doesn't pull him closer but presses himself closer instead, presses his nose to James' hair and breathes him in. James turns his head a little more into Steve's chest but doesn't speak. They don't need to, and that's nice enough, but Steve can't remember the last time he's been able to just lie with someone like this. 

For someone whose daily routine includes beating the sun at rising and running half a marathon before breakfast just for kicks, spending an afternoon in bed is not exactly standard fare. Still though, it's nice to have downtime. 

It used to be that Steve needed always to be doing something. Running, training, fighting, arguing, _something_ , but he does a little better these days at going to catch a movie or heading out for a beer or just plain old going for a walk. And, if he's honest with himself, it is nice in quite a few different ways to be lying in crisp linens all cuddled up to someone, the sunlight coming in.

He's on duty this evening, from around five, but that's okay. He and James haven't decided where James is staying during the week, but Steve's perfectly happy to have him here, and there's a cake on its way up because James might have been kidding but Steve was not. This is near enough a promotion – certainly it will mean that James is more prominent in his department. Him and his friend Amy both, actually – Steve would like to meet her at some point.

“You feelin' okay?” Steve asks, and James stretches against him, snuggles a little closer.

“Mmm,” he says. “Nervous.”

“Don't be,” Steve tells him. “Sam was the first person in this century to talk to me about what I'd been through without sticking his foot in his mouth. He knows how to be have like an actual person and he doesn't discriminate based on age or anything, so all you gotta do is not get ahead of yourself. _And_ ,” he says, pausing to make sure he's got James', “if you can give as good as you get, that's brownie points. Okay?”

James snorts.

“You want me to insult Captain America?”

Steve chuckles, kisses the top of James' head. 

“I want to warn you that he's not getting personal when he starts gettin' personal. Okay?”

James sighs through his nose.

“Okay,” he says. “But I reserve the right to bug out.”

Steve laughs again, a little more loudly this time.

“Sure, sweetheart,” he says, because there's no reason to refuse him even if he knows there's no way Sam could ever be that bad. “I got plenty of practice entertaining him anyhow.”

James shakes his head.

“You want me to insult Captain America,” he sighs, warm breath across Steve's skin. “Shouldn't be too hard, his uniform's ridiculous-”

Steve prods him in the side just to make him yelp, and James pretends to try and escape. Steve stops him easily – of course he does – rolling them over so he's over James, pinning James' wrists either side of his head. 

James is unmistakably interested, his pupils a little wider, his skin a little more flushed. Steve can, if he tries, perceive more about people than regular human beings can. He can, for example, smell the sourness in the sweat of someone who's afraid, can hear the rapid increase of a person's heart rate. His senses pick up on things, which means it's easy to tell how turned on James is.

“Maybe I oughta use the rope,” Steve tells him, and James kind of squirms. “Yeah?”

“How about cuffs?” he says, and Steve narrows his eyes.

“There a reason you're saying stuff to me like this when you know we've got no time at all?”

James just raises one eyebrow, a pretty twist to his pretty mouth. Steve attempts to kiss the expression off him and fails, but it's not as though he's sad about it.

“I'm taking a shower,” he says. “Then _you're_ taking a shower, and then we'll have a nice couple of hours with Sam before I go on duty.”

He lets go just enough that James thinks he can get up, and then pins him again.

“And we are having this conversation later,” he says.

James grins, cranes his neck for a kiss.

“You sure you don't want company?” he says as Steve gets up.

“Want and need are separate things, Doll,” he says, and he can hear James laughing behind him.

***

Sam is sharing an elevator with Dana, one of the security people.

Dana is holding a very big box with a little box on top.

“Dana,” Sam says, and Dana nods.

“Cap,” she says.

Sam doesn't roll his eyes. Steve put up with it for nearly fifteen years, Sam's only been doing it for about five.

“You havin' a party?” he asks, and Dana shrugs. 

“Somebody is,” she says. 

Sam's only partially surprised when they both get off at the same floor, and Dana nods to him to go first so that he can knock on Steve's door.

“Man, you want me to take that?” he says, and Dana is about to answer when Steve answers the door.

“-be fine, I promise,” he says. “Hey! Oh, hey, Dana, too, nice. Lemme take that off you.” Steve takes the boxes and tilts them slightly toward Dana. “Little one's yours,” he says, and Dana smiles.

“Thanks,” she says. “What kind?”

“Horchata,” Steve grins.

“Awesome!” and she goes to get back in the elevator.

“Thanks, Dana!” Steve calls after her and then, when Dana gives him a wave and disappears again, he greets Sam. “Hi, Sam.”

“Ah-huh,” Sam says, following Steve inside. “Cake before bros?”

“Aw, Sam,” Steve says. “Couldn't think of anything dessert-related to rhyme with bros?”

Sam's considering kicking Steve in the back of legs, but that might take him down and then, no cake.

“ 'Ros before bros,” says a voice to Sam's left, “like churros?” and then, well...

Sam can see why Steve picked him. If Sam didn't know better, he'd suspect some kind of time-mishap.

“Nobody likes a smartass,” Steve says, putting the cake on the breakfast table.

“Must be why nobody likes you,” Sam tells him, and extends a hand just as James extends one, too.

“ _He_ likes me,” Steve says, turning back to watch them shake, jabbing his thumb in James' direction.

“Fools seldom differ,” Sam says, and Steve smiles.

“I got near enough promoted today,” James says, “hence the cake, so I presume you're talking about the two of you.”

Sam feels his eyebrows go up. Okay, so the kid ain't a shrinkin' violet – Sam wouldn't have thought Steve'd go for that anyway.

“Maybe, but which one of us was dumb enough to date Steve?” Sam responds, and James shrugs.

“Hands up if you've never walked around with a giant tricolor target on your back,” he says, and raises his free hand. “No? Only me?”

“Birds in their little nest,” Steve warns amicably, and Sam waves him off with his free hand. “Coffee all round?”

Sam nods, lets go of James' hand. “Sure,” he says. 

James beams at Steve, and Steve beams right back at him, and then Sam and James take seats on the couch – James all the way at the other end of the other couch.

“So,” James says. “What do you do?” It startles a laugh out of Sam, and James grins, but then sobers. “It's an honor to meet you, Sir.”

“Oh, naw, naw, you ain't callin' me 'Sir,' ” Sam answers, nodding toward Steve. “I look like that idiot to you?”

“Not _that_ one...” James answers, and Sam crows.

“Damn, you two suit each other!” but he's smiling, and so is James – and, so, when he turns around, is Steve.

“So tell me everything,” Sam says, leaning toward James the way he's seen Pepper and Maria do. “Is he handsome, is he good in bed, does he treat you right?” And then, “if _either_ of you tell me anything about your sex life, our friendships are over.”

“What, you don't like burlesque?” Steve asks, and Sam pulls a face that he hopes conveys both how terrible that joke was as well as how little he's amused, because the two are non necessarily synonymous with each other.

“So,” Sam says, turning back to James with a nod of thanks as Steve hands him his coffee.

Steve goes to sit on the other couch, with James, and it's not weird, it's just new. Usually he and Steve sit next to each other on the couch but now Steve sits with James, who shifts a little closer. Even though he's not snuggling outright, it's not difficult to see that Steve's pleased with his proximity – Steve's gotten a lot better at letting people into that bubble but Sam watches him stretch an arm out along the back of the couch as he smiles. Steve smiles a lot these days, but it's still plain to see how much more relaxed he is right now.

“Steve tells me you met at a coffee bar,” Sam says. “Technically.”

“Technically,” James says, inclining his head and...alright, now it's not so obvious. James does look a lot like Bucky Barnes (from what Sam's seen of photos and Steve's many sketches), but he's different in ways Sam can see even though all he really has to go on is grainy museum footage.

James walks him through Steve subtly insulting Tony Stark right through to meeting him for coffee. He doesn't doubt what happened after that, but James gentlemans it out and skips ahead until after Portugal.

“I just happened to see him again,” he says, and then he looks at Steve. “Lucky me!”

“Lucky both of us,” Steve says, and he doesn't lift James' hand to kiss his knuckles, but he rubs them with his thumb as though he might be thinking about it.

“I'm just surprised you managed to subtly insult Tony Stark,” Sam says. “I didn't know you could subtly do _anything!”_

James laughs and Steve just gives him a look.

“You're an asshole, Sam Wilson.”

Sam shrugs.

“That's what the 'A' _really_ stands for.”

~

They don't talk much about James' work – they ask Jarvis what he's allowed to tell them, and get as far as the fact that Engineer Barnes is an employee found through the SI New Recruit Initiative and pulled straight outta Cornell, working on tech that Sam's maybe seventy percent sure he might have to rely on one day. After that, James can't tell him anything, but Steve shrugs.

“We all got big red Eyes Only stamps on what we do,” he says, and the hand on the back of the couch moves forward, brushes a strand of James' hair behind his ear. “Just we're on different levels now.”

“Oh my God, I really hope it gets put into testing soon,” James says. “That's what happened today – Mr Stark came to have a look at it and said I'd be hearing from upstairs!”

Sam feels his eyebrows draw together.

“That's good, right?”

“Testing and manufacture,” Steve says. “One step closer.”

James looks like a ball of sunshine contained in one of the most hipster outfits Sam has ever seen anyone without a massive beard attempt, but he can't exactly blame James. James, from what Sam understands, works on a floor full of people who are all about genius-level. So he's working with peers – and obviously having a great time doing so – but it does mean that he's the best of the best. Presumably that's a high-powered environment.

“No more so than yours,” James says. “Well, maybe slightly more so than _yours_...”

Sam stares, agape, at the kid for maybe three seconds.

“Boy, are you hearing this kid?” he says to Steve, and Steve laughs.

~

It's not until they've been talking to each other about the usual small-talk for forty-five minutes or so that Steve remembers cake. 

“Damn, sorry,” he says, and he gets up to start serving.

Sam waits for him to be in the kitchen before he says,

“So has he told you about the time he tried to Tarzan that shit and went straight into a building instead?”

James' eyes light up like a Christmas tree.

“No!” he says. 

At the table, where he's plating slices of cake, Steve groans.

~

They've all relaxed a little. Steve has wedged himself into the corner of the couch after three slices of cake, and James has wedged himself into Steve's side with a fresh mug of coffee in his hands. Sam and James have only had one slice of cake, because they're not terrible human beings, and Steve just shrugs.

“They call it superhuman for a reason,” he says, and Sam rolls his eyes.

“Super's not the word I'd choose.”

“Still having trouble finding words?” James says.

Sam laughs.

~

“Honestly, it's the selflessness that gets me,” James says. “I can understand wanting to do the right thing, but you guys...”

“Oh, I'm sure you'd do the right thing,” Steve says, but James shakes his head, sips his coffee.

“Nah, I _say_ I would,” he answers. “You know? I sit here and say 'well I know where the fire extinguishers are' or 'I learned CPR and basic first aid' but like, would I even use them? I bet I'd be another headless chicken if something happened – maybe wouldn't even get to runnin'.”

“That's why you're the engineer,” Sam tells him, and James tilts his head this way and that. “You fix the problems and we don't have as many disasters.”

“Eh,” he says. “That's certainly why you're the superheroes, anyway.”

“Nah, that's stupidity,” Steve says. 

“No it isn't! You know that story about you jumping on the grenade in Boot Camp?” James asks. Steve passes his hand over his eyes.

“I mean, whose argument are you trying to prove?”

James blows an actual raspberry.

“And you,” James says, and then looks at Sam. “Your'e a PJ, for God's sakes. And now you're PJ Captain America like...man...” He's silent for a few seconds, but he's looking Sam up and down, and then he looks at Steve. “I mean, I'm honored to be in the same building as you, really, let alone the same room,” he says. 

Steve, who has his arm around James' shoulders now, rubs James' upper arm.

“You get over it,” Sam says wryly, looking at Steve, and Steve barks a laugh, startled into it.

“How long did you serve?” James asks, and Sam feels his eyebrows raise again. 

“Two tours,” he says. 

“You okay to talk about it?” James says quietly and, when Sam glances at Steve, Steve's wearing an expression somewhere between very tired and very proud. 

It's the kind of look that means _yes,_ but also means _I'm trusting you'll tread carefully._ James doesn't look like he needs reminding, and so Sam starts at the start of his tours, but goes back when James asks questions about how he signed up, back further still when James asks about how he came to want to serve.

James asks questions about Riley, when Sam gets that far, and Sam answers with the same quiet reserve that Steve always used to when new acquaintances asked him about Bucky Barnes. It's not that Sam doesn't want to talk about him, not even that Sam doesn't trust James – he's had all the security checks he can have had, and he's passed muster with Steve, after all – but Riley is still as much a part of him as he ever was, and Sam doesn't want to bare that particular part of himself right at this particular moment. James politely accepts his deflection when he makes one, and they say no more about it.

By the time changeover's on them, the small chiming noise going off in Steve's living room, Sam's actually reasonably enjoyed his afternoon. Obviously, there was cake, but James is a good kid. He is _incredibly_ young in the way that twenty-one-year-olds are. He's a man, of course he is, but he's still learning about who he is, still becoming the guy he'll be one day.

Sam remembers Steve being just like him, for all intents and purposes. Self-depricating, sharp, and just enough of an asshole to be endearing. 

He's so _young_. Then again, it's not like he struggled with content or confidence during their afternoon, so Sam's only real problem – and he knows enough about himself and psychology to recognize it – is his preconception of a relationship with such a significant age-difference.

For now, the only issue he foresees is the fact that Steve has only spent time around James off-duty. James hasn't yet had to handle sudden emergencies, abrupt endings to things like sleep and family holidays, or the unenviable feeling of knowing someone you care about is in Danger-with-a-capital-'D,' and/or injured.

He doesn't doubt Steve's had that talk with him, but hearing it and experiencing it are two very separate things.

Sam stands up.

“Alright, I know when I'm not wanted,” he says. “I'm gonna head upstairs, check in, brief. You be up in a little while?”

They've had a good couple of hours, despite Sam's worst fears. He knew the kid had to be smart if Steve liked him for who he really was, but there was the niggling doubt at the back of his mind that maybe Steve really had just targeted him for his looks and that...didn't sit as well.

Still, as things have turned out, James is young but he's smart and quick off the mark, and he doesn't back down from Sam, which Sam can appreciate. There are a lot of people – Sam feels – who have carried the original WW2 Vet respect on over to him, people who still call Sam Captain America like Sam's the one who crashed a plane into ice.

But James? James asked Sam what it was like to be a P.J, asked Sam questions about his tours and his family, wanted to know more about Sam in conjunction with the role he's taken, instead of just the red, white and blue. Sam remembers a time when he'd done the same for Steve – one of very few people at that point who had – and he appreciates it as much as Steve always said he did.

“Yeah,” Steve says, groaning as he extricates himself from the couch. “I won't be long, actually, I can go now. James, are you staying here?” 

“Uh,” James says. “I mean, I can go home-”

“I ask only for information,” Steve answers, eyes closed, hand on his heart because he's a drama queen.

James shakes his head as Steve drops his hand again.

“I like it here,” he says. “If you're okay with that.”

Steve nods, and then he goes over to the door and puts on his shoes.

“Sure,” he says. “You can queue something up on Netflix or whatever, and you can use the laptop in the bedroom if you wanna use the internet on something bigger than your phone. Okay?”

“Yeah,” James says, and then he tips his head back as Steve comes to stand behind the couch.

“Ready?” he asks Sam.

“After you,” Sam answers.

Steve leans down and presses an upside down kiss to James' mouth, says something in his ear and then straightens up.

“We'll be about forty-five minutes,” he says. “Okay?”

“Mm-hmm,” James nods.

Steve smiles, and then looks at Sam and then indicates the door with a small movement of his head.

Sam walks to James and shakes his hand again, and James goes a little pink, seems to shrink a little.

“Sorry,” he says. “I just...I mean, it's you. I mean, it was nice to meet you.”

Sam smiles.

“Good to meet you too, James,” he says, and then he and Steve leave the apartment and get into the elevator.

~

James wipes his hands on his trousers – sweaty palms, great – and then he gets up to get another cup of coffee. And maaaaybe another slice of cake as a well done. He survived finishing his project, _and_ Tony Stark _and_ Sam Wilson. As far as James is concerned, he's earned it.

~

“So,” Steve says as the elevator starts moving. “What do you think?”

“Man,” Sam says, and then he thinks.

Steve lets him – they've been partners long enough by now to know when to keep quiet and let somebody's brain turn over.

“I think he's a good kid,” Sam hedges, and Steve smiles apologetically.

“Real young, huh?”

Sam lifts a hand, tilts it from side to side. 

“Smarter than a lot of kids his age, good at conversation – really conscious of a lot of shit, too. You know? Didn't ask me about Riley once I didn't wanna talk about Riley. “

“He's good that way,” Steve says. “A lot of ways, actually. And I know he's only twenty-one but like I said to him, I'm not looking for a wedding. I'm looking for somebody to spend time with and share space with and he's...We get along, you know?”

“Mmm,” Sam says. “Just...I mean, he is really young. Remember how hard you can fall at that age, okay? Be careful you don't break his heart.”

Steve chews the inside of his cheek as he nods, and Sam knows he's not as pleased as he could be. But then Sam can't give him the Full-Steam-Ahead because James...James hasn't even started to have a life yet, not really. If Steve's not very careful, James will center his life around their relationship, and that way sad futures lie.

And Sam knows Steve, knows a lot of what he's been through, and has seen him go from young and recklessly selfless to someone measured – tempered by his experiences rather than controlled by them. SHIELD never did explain why nobody thought it prudent to assign a counselor to someone who'd literally lost his entire world, but Steve's made it through that regardless.

Getting help has been probably the best thing to happen to Steve in this century, and Sam doesn't consider what might have happened to him if he'd kept to himself and not spoken to anyone, because there aren't really many ways it could have turned out and he isn't fond of any of them.

Even if he's not sure this is the right decision, he trusts Steve to do the right thing if it turns out not to be.

But Steve chuckles and the elevator lets them out onto the Avengers floor.

“I think, outta the two of us, he's more likely to break mine,” he says, and they walk into the conference room together. “But I'll keep an eye on it.”

Steve will be careful, of course he will, and so Sam turns his attention to briefing

Not everyone's here, but most people are, and Hill has sent a couple of people from SHIELD about something – Jack and Grace, if Sam remembers rightly. Sam nods in acknowledgement in response to nods of their own, and he and Steve settle into the chairs at the conference table. 

It turns out there's basically nothing going on that ought to concern them. There's a fire in a chem lab in France which is under control (which turns out to be the SHIELD thing), a despot has died and his two sons are now trying to decide between them who's running the joint, and The Late Show wants a couple of them to interview satirically.

Steve puts his hand up for that one, so Sam does too – someone's gotta keep an eye on the idiot.

***

James is busy on the laptop when Steve comes back, ' ~~Super~~ **human** ' playing on the wallscreen, too, and he stands up as Steve walks in.

“Pause it, please, Jarvis?” he says, and Steve reels him in as soon as they're toe to toe, kisses him.

“You taste like cake,” he says, “not that I'm complaining – you doin' okay?”

“Yeah,” James says, bringing both hands up to Steve's chest as Steve slings his arms around James' waist.

“Wasn't so bad, huh?” he asks, and James tilts his head, screws up his face.

“I guess he's okay?” he says, and Steve chuckles. “How'd I do?” 

“He likes you,” Steve says.

“Yeah,” James answers. “But what does he think?”

Steve cocks his head and looks at James, smiles a little.

“You, he likes,” he says. “My decision, not so much.”

“He understands it's not just your decision, right?” James says, and Steve laughs.

“Just...give people time to get used to it. They've never seen my track record look like you before.”

James rolls his eyes.

“Fine,” he says, and then he pulls away, so Steve lets him go, but he can see the lingering tension in James' shoulders.

“I mean, what will your parents think?” he says, voicing what's probably his biggest fear about this whole thing, and James stops.

He doesn't say anything for a long few seconds, and then he sighs heavily, tilting his head back to look at the ceiling.

“They're not gonna like it,” he says, conceding the point, and Steve walks over to him, rubs James' upper arms from behind him, ducks his head to kiss the top of James' spine where his oversized collar sags down a little at the back.

“Give Sam time,” Steve says. “He's been my best friend long enough to know when I'm serious about something, and he'll come around once he sees how good you are for me.”

James sighs and leans back into Steve and doesn't say anything for a while.

Eventually, Steve says,

“Anyway, don't fret about it now,” and moves to walk past him. “You know your alarm training?” 

James seems surprised for a moment but he recovers quickly.

“Yeah,” he says, because everyone employed at the tower gets briefed in the different types of alarms they might hear at any given time. 

“Good,” Steve says. “If you're gonna be here while I'm on duty, you need to remember it. Good thing is, if you've got a problem anywhere on the residential floors, you can just ask Jarvis for help.”

“I can?” James says, and Steve nods.

“Yep,” he says, and then he looks up, because he's always looked up to address Jarvis and nobody will ever break him of the habit, “Jarvis, can you demonstrate?”

 _“Indeed I can, Sir,”_ Jarvis answers, and then the lights dim noticeably, striplights suddenly lighting along the skirting boards, little lights like dotted lines leading from either side of James all the way to the front door, presumably projected. _“Do not use the elevators in the event of an emergency. Please follow directional illumination to your nearest exit.”_

And then the new lights are gone and the regular lights come back up.

“Literally all you gotta do is say 'Help, Jarvis,' or the equivalent, and he'll guide you where you need to go. Okay?”

James looks around but he nods after a moment or two.

“Okay,” he says. “What happens if there's an Avengers thing? Do you just run upstairs?”

Steve puts his hands in his pockets, shrugs his shoulders.

“Basically,” he says. “You don't need to worry about that, though.”

James looks like he's not sure about this.

“Okay,” Steve says, taking his hands out of his pockets. “The only difference between the past two weeks and this week is that I'm on duty. I don't have to hang around in uniform all the time, I don't need to be awake twenty-four hours a day. We go about our business like we do every day, and I might at some point need to suit up. We're not going to be sitting in silence waiting for the alarms to sound. Okay?”

“Yeah,” James says. “You're on duty for the whole week?”

Steve nods.

“Whole week.”

“So no sex until Friday?” 

Steve blinks, and then does his level best to ignore the way his body almost physically revolts at this idea.

“I mean, we'd need to be fast,” Steve says. 

James looks suddenly devious in a way that's thoroughly enticing.

“Oh, really?”

***

“You know you said before about cuffs?” James asks as Steve props them both up against the side of the bed.

They started on the bed but ended up on the floor, but at least most of the bedding made it down too.

“Yeah?” Steve says.

“I don't think I,” James says, but he cuts himself short and stays silent for a few moments. “I like it when you hold me down, or when you tell me to do stuff but I don't...think I want to be...really _really_ uh...”

Steve turns his head on the mass of quilt and sheet and looks at him.

“Sorry,” James says, turning onto his side to face Steve. “I just mean there's people who like wear all the...uh, gear and stuff and they call each other Sir and things like that and I like when you're in charge but I don't want to be... _not_ in charge. Does...I mean, is that bad?”

Steve reaches up and brushes hair out of James' eyes.

“Firstly, as long as you ain't hurtin' nobody, ain't no problem, right?” James nods slowly as though he's not really sure. “Okay. And I get what you mean, kid, it's like you like when I tell you how good you're being, but you don't like the whole...” Steve searches for the word. “You're not necessarily into the possessiveness of a relationship like that. Right?”

James nods, visibly relieved. 

“Right,” he says. “Like the ropes are nice but I like being able to get out of 'em. A-And I like that thing where you tell me what to do but you won't...uh...I mean, if I can't...”

“It's not my job to punish you. Even if we worked like that, I wouldn't punish you for not doing something, right,” Steve says. “Plus, kiddo, you got a praise kink a mile wide, don't think I didn't notice.”

James' cheeks get a little pinker.

“Uh,” he says, and Steve rolls towards him, strokes James' cheek. 

“Aw, Sweetheart,” he says. “Don't worry about it; I like tellin' you how good you are for me. You know how well you're doin'?”

James' mouth has opened a little, his eyes a little wider.

“That's right,” Steve says. “Seems we fit together real nice, don't you think?”

James is silent for a moment longer, and then he snorts.

“Is that what we're calling it?”

Steve rolls onto his back again to laugh.

He's not tired, not really. Neither of them are. And the only real reason changeover happens on a Friday evening is so that Avengers can TGIF with the best of them, and so a new team can come in fresh just as the world starts to get a little nuts.

Only thing worse than a Friday night is a Saturday night, that's for sure, and people celebrate with drinking and raucous behavior the world over. 

“What do you feel like for dinner?” Steve asks, because he'll need to get back up again soon.

“Hmmm,” James says. “Indian?”

Steve nods.

“Sure thing,” he says. “Why don't you order us some off the laptop and I'll put on some coffee – just pay on my account, it'll have my usual order at the top.”

And they start disentangling themselves from the bedclothes to get back into their Friday evening.

***

**  
**  
Saturday  


 _“Open your fucking door,”_ Rebecca's voice says, less tinny through the StarkPhone's speakers than it would have been through the speakers of his old phone, but James squints at it bleraily, _“ya fuck.”_

“Becca?” he says, and his voice is thick and rough – there's no doubting she just woke him up.

_“What are ya, fuckin' deaf? I been banging on your door for ten minutes. Come let me in, you lazy-”_

“Where _are_ you?” James asks, taking stock of his surroundings – Steve's impeccable bedroom, of course, and the crisp, white sheets that smell of him, and the sun that isn't nearly as far across the sky as James would like. 

It's barely making it to the bed at all.

 _“I'm at your place, dumbass!”_ Becca answers. _“Fuckin' let me in before I break down the-”_

“I'm not there,” James tells her, sitting up in bed.

Ugh, the sun may not be streaming in but it's light enough, thanks very much. 

He can hear the wheels turning in Becca's head. 

_“Whaddya mean you're not here, where_ are _you then?”_

James chews his lip and then figures it can't hurt to tell her.

“I'm at my boyfriend's.” 

There's an even longer silence than usual, and he can actually hear the stuff going on around her. Somebody's leaving an apartment near his.

_“Boy you better count yourself fuckin' lucky your phone doesn't have GPS trackers on it.”_

_“You tell him, sweetheart,”_ says another voice.

 _“Oh, no, no it's my brother-”_ Becca says, just as James says,

“Hi, Mrs G!”

_“He says 'Hi, Mrs G.'”_

There's a silence.

 _“She waved,”_ Becca tells him, and James smiles. _“Are you still even in the country even?”_

“Yes, I even am, even, I'm even in New York, Becca, where the fuck else would I be?"

Steve walks in, lifts his chin as he notes James' evidently less-than-pleased expression, and sets down the tray he was carrying as James mouths, _my sister_ at him. His eyebrows go up in acknowledgement and he sits down on the edge of the bed, sets his hand on James' ankle through the bedclothes. 

_“Well I don't know! He might've taken you to Milan or something, I don't know. Where in New York are you?”_

James is wearing his flattest look, even if she can't see it.

“New York,” he says. 

_“Fine,” she answers. “I was gonna ask you if you wanted to go to lunch but if you're too busy with your_ boyfriend _then I-”_

“Hold on,” he says, and then he presses the phone to his bare sternum.

 _She wants to take me to lunch,_ he mouths at Steve, watches Steve's eyes drop to his lips and follow what he's saying.

Steve nods, gives him the thumbs up, but James shakes his head.

_Do you want to meet my sister?_

Steve looks like James has slapped him or something, eyebrows up, eyes wide, mouth slightly open. It's only for a few seconds but it's hilarious, and then he turns his mouth down in the most comical why-not expression James has ever seen, shrugging his shoulders.

“Sure,” he whispers, and James beams at him.

“Cool,” he says, and then puts the phone back up to his ear. “We can have lunch. Can I bring him?” 

Becca gasps.

 _“Oh my God, seriously?”_ she says, and James snorts. _“Yeah? But no wait, shit, I'm not even dressed nice-”_

“That's okay, he's dating me, not you.”

_“James I swear-”_

“What are you wearing?” James says. “I bet you look fine.”

Steve frowns as though this is the worst thing he's ever heard.

“Tell her I don't care,” he says.

“Yeah, he says he don't care, so can...wait, can you meet me at like Grand Central?”

“I can send a car,” Steve says softly, “or I can go get her on my bike?”

James shakes his head, holds up a hand. 

_“Christ on a fuckin' tricycle, Jay-double-Bee, are you fuckin' kidding me? You want me in Manhattan on a Saturday, are you a fuckin' sadist?”_

Steve stifles a laugh.

“Can you get here or not? Like we can come to you you but y'know. There's a place near the station, we won't get disturbed as much.”

_“Jamie, Jimmy-boy, I swear to frick, who the fuck is this dude? This is New York, nobody cares!”_

“Becca-”

_“I'll be there in an hour and you better be waitin' for me with a bunch of flowers and a box of friggin' donuts and the flowers better be made out of donuts.”_

She doesn't actually wait for him to answer before she ends the call and Steve laughs as James takes his phone down to stare at it incredulously.

“Uh, I guess you're meeting my sister today.”

Steve smiles, hands James a cup of coffee from the tray.

“I'll scare up some cronuts, get you some brownie points. When she gets here, take her to TCB and I'll meet you. Don't order until I get there, either – I'll pick you two something up. Any preferences?”

“My sister likes the white chocolate mocha. Do you know what a cinnamon roll frappé is?” James asks, and Steve blinks like he's just been shown something particularly bright.

“Uh, no,” he says, “but enlighten me.”

~

Steve secured the cronuts by phone – literally that was what he said, 'I've secured the cronuts' like he's on a mission, it's freaking cute is what it is – and now he's onto general trivia, and James isn't sure if Steve is nervous or not.

Probably not.

“Any advice?” he says, zipping the fly on his black jeans.

James considers this as Steve goes next for a black button-down, fastening the collar but not the sleeves once he's finished all but two of the buttons up the placket.

“You could open another button,” James tells him, and Steve raises one eyebrow in the mirror but, with a wry smile, does as James suggests. 

He goes next for a navy blue blazer and then finds and grabs a plain navy baseball cap.

“Does that fool anyone?” James asks.

“No,” Steve answers, “but it puts people off for long enough that they leave me alone for the time it takes me to leave. Any topics I ought to avoid?”

“Uh,” James says. “Politics, I guess? You know – birth control, women's rights, the right to choose, gay rights, the government – in general anything that might set her off.”

Steve pauses.

“She's not republican, is she?”

James laughs.

~

It's weird to be standing by himself when he's spent so much time around other people, and specifically Steve, during the last week or two, but here he is, feeling exceptionally small in the bustle of everyday Grand Central. 

He got her _'ETA5'_ text maybe ten minutes ago, and he still doesn't see her, so he's really not sure what her plan is. He can't have missed her – even if he has, she's supposed to be here somewhere – but he can't see her. He's not great at picking people out of a crowd – somehow all the faces he checks are never the one he's looking for – but he'd know her anyway and she's more likely to scream for him across a concourse of people than-

He nearly jumps out of his skin when someone jabs him in the side in _just_ the right area to make him bend double except sideways and leap about ten feet in the air involuntarily with the kind of yelp that makes even New Yorkers glance in his direction.

“ _Fuck_ you?” he says, probably louder than he meant.

“You said you were bringing him, dickhead, I even put on my fucking makeup.”

James rubs his side as he looks her up and down. Skinny jeans, leather jacket, and for God's sake a fucking Avengers shirt. James has them, of course he does. But what are the freaking odds.

“I _am_ bringing him,” James tells her. “Also, fucking ow?” The only reason he doesn't do it back is because it'd only start a fight, and they're late already. And then... “Wait, is that why you took so long? You were trying to get a look at him from a distance?”

She looks absolutely unapologetic.

“If you hadn't called me in tears about him, I'd be seriously doubting your honesty, Jabooby.”

“Fuck off,” James says. “And if you call me that in front of him, I'll tell him what happened at Auntie Carol's.”

Becca visibly pales.

“You better fuckin' not,” she says. “And lighten the fuck up, as if I'd fucking embarrass you in front of your hot ass actor singer boyfriend or whatever. Where is he?”

James starts to walk, and she starts to walk with him.

“You know I work in the tower,” he says, pointing upward. 

“Yeah,” she says.

“Well I get clearance, and they have a nice coffee place that's like off street level and nobody comes into the office on Saturdays except people who live there so like we can go-”

She grabs him by the arm.

“You're taking me into Avengers Tower for lunch and I'm wearing a fucking Avegers shirt. What if somebody turns up, James? What if the Black Widow sees me in a fuckin' I HEART VENGERS shirt?”

It doesn't say that – her shirt actually says ' **A** ♥ENGERS' with the Avengers logo 'A' and an actual heart for the V. The heart and the letters are all divided into lots of different sections and each section has a picture of the the more media-popular Avengers in their corresponding colors instead of black and white.

It's written right across her boobs.

“Well then you've got an icebreaker,” he says. “Come on, I don't wanna keep him waiting.”

They get all the way into the lobby, where James shows his ID to Sharisa on the front desk so she can check that he can let Becca in (he can – his whole family was vetted before he started work on the ReCProSys, and their background checks are still on file) before Becca shows a little hesitation.

She's only eighteen and, even though she's met some author/artist heroes at cons and one or two people she admires at rallies, she's nervous of places like this.

“Wait,” she says, “wait, James, wait, shit.”

He stops, looks at her.

“What's the matter?” he says, but she looks at him like her whole world is crumbling. 

“I feel like I'm gonna be sick,” she says. “What if he hates me?”

“He's not gonna hate you,” James tells her, grasps her shoulders like Steve does with him. “He's the best dude I've ever met. Like, good-guy good, not just good at what he does. You know? He's sweet and smart and he's gonna love you.”

Becca's mouth twists.

“Come on,” James tells her. “We're gonna go to TCB and wait for him there. Then we can decide what to do for lunch.”

“TCB?” she says as he herds her towards the elevator - it's quiet today, so he can pretty much pick whichever one he likes.

“The Coffee Bar,” he says. “That's what the coffee bar's called.”

She rolls her eyes as the doors close.

“Wow,” she says. “Original.”

~

James is not nervous. He knows that Steve will love Becca and he knows already that Becca loves Steve. Or, actually, she loves Captain America, so he might have to watch that, but she was raised by the same parents he was raised by, and they both know how to be respectful of their elders, and of people deserving of respect.

The only thing he's really worried about is that one of them will stick a foot in their mouth, but everybody does that. _Even Steve_ , and if Steve can do it accidentally, everyone can do it. 

They take a seat at one of the many empty tables – this must be one of the only places in Manhattan that gets _quiet_ on the weekends – and Becca looks around the place.

“Uh, are we not ordering?”

“Nah,” James says. “We're probably eating somewhere else, it's just that we're meeting here.”

“James,” she says. “Come _on_ , I can't believe this – are you not even gonna tell me his first name? Like what will I have seen him in? Movies or TV, or is it-”

She cuts herself off, and he frowns, but her eyes have gone wide and they're tracking something over his shoulder. James looks back too and she kicks him under the table.

“Ow!” he says, but she leans forward.

“ _Don't_ stare,” she says, “like literally, don't look now but _Captain America just fucking walked in_ , James.”

James looks anyway to antagonize her. 

She kicks him again – it's worth it – and he kicks her back as Steve Rogers, on the other side of the bar from them, wa-a-ay over on the other side of what's basically like a quarter of the entire floor, walks over to the actual bar. That means he's out of Becca's eyeline and _that_ means that James is on observation duty. Sure enough,

“Oh my _God_ , James, it's really him!” she half-whispers. “What's he doing right now?”

James looks at her.

“Firstly, that's Steve Rogers, not Captain America. Sam Wilson is Captain America now. Second, we're in a place called 'The Coffee Bar,' Becca, what the fuck do you think he's doing?”

She clenches her jaw but, evidently, her excitement is too great.

“Oh my God, I kinda wanna go over and talk to him but like what would I even say. Do you think if we waved at him, he'd wave back?” James bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. “He's so amazing, and like he's huge! I mean, I knew he was tall but he's always standing next to Thor in pictures and everyone looks tiny next to that guy – did you know Thor is six-foot-four?”

“Yeah,” James nods, but she waves a hand at him.

She also glances back really, really quickly and then looks at James.

“How can he look that good all the time, it's a Saturday afternoon!” 

James snorts but she's looking at her hands and then at the table and then straight at James without blinking, and then she says,

“God I wanna tell him he's awesome. I mean, I bet he know- I mean, no, I mean, I bet he doesn't need for people to tell him but I wanna tell him. You know? You remember that thing when he had that thing and there were all those ads? He was supposed to look serious but he looked hot as well?”

“All the anti-suicide ones?” James says, and she nods.

“Yeah, the whole,” she glances back, presumably to make sure he hasn't left yet while the barista starts the blender, “ 'don't jump, call us' thing for that charity. Like what must that even be like? God, I can't imagine, he'd have to be so brave. I wanna tell him.”

James glances over at the counter.

“What's he doing?” she says, and James narrows his eyes.

“Becca, do you _wanna_ go over?”

“Fuck no,” she says. “I'd probably just try and swallow my whole fuckin' leg but he's- He's so good-looking. You know? Everyone knows he's good-looking but he looks amazing, it doesn't look like he belongs as a human, you know? I wish I could tell him thanks for everything. He's done a lot, huh?” 

James smiles a little, doesn't say anything for a few seconds. 

“He has,” he says eventually, and Becca opens her mouth to say something, but she doesn't get that far.

~

Rebecca Barnes is not someone who's easily thrown by anything. She's lived a life not exactly in her brother's shadow, but all too aware of how much he's done by such a young age, nonetheless. She knows where she wants to go for college, she knows what she wants out of her life, and she's got a handle on things like romantic partners and recreational activity. She doesn't drink, she doesn't do drugs, she doesn't have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, and she doesn't particularly need one right now. She's got amazing grades and she can work through anything – noise, pain, illness, but what she'll remember most when she looks back on this particular moment is how she smelled _very_ nice – read, rich and deep and smooth – cologne before a _very_ large hand sets a white chocolate mocha in front of her, and a cinnamon roll frappé in front of her brother.

Because, by the time she looks up, the huge now-empty left hand is being held out to her and way, way way above her head, blue eyes sparkling from under the bill of a plain baseball cap, _Steven Grant Fucking Rogers_ is smiling down at her.

“Rebecca Barnes?” he says in a way that means she will be hearing it _for ever_ in her mind. “It's real good to meet you.”

And for a good three seconds, absolutely nothing happens.

Then she gets to her feet, picks up her purse, and starts slapping James in the shoulder with it.

“You,” she says, “fucking,” slap, “asshole,” slap, “fuck,” slap, “you!”

then she dumps the purse and holds out her hand to shake Steve's.

“Commander Rogers,” she says.

Commander Rogers' fingers take a moment to close around her hand but then he's laughing.

“He didn't tell you?”

“ _No_ he didn't fricken tell me,” she says, giving him a look, but she makes her handshake as strong as it takes to match his, and smiles. “It's an honor to meet you, Sir – I was just saying to James that I'd come tell you how much it means to New Yorkers to know you're behind them if I had the balls to walk over to you.”

Steve blinks but shakes himself out of it soon enough.

“Well thank you,” he says, “but please call me Steve.”

“Only if you call me Becca,” she answers, taking her seat again.

Steve smiles wryly.

“Yes, Ma'am,” he says, and she knows she blushes – she can feel it.

But she can also see from the look on the guy's face that he did it on purpose.

“I can't believe you bought me a coffee,” she says, “lemme pay you the-”

Steve, who has already kissed her brother on the temple before making to sit down, is just lowering himself into the chair when he shakes his head.

“Please,” he says. “I've got seventy years of backpay – a white chocolate mocha ain't shit.” Becca nearly chokes on hers. “Are we heading upstairs?”

“Sure,” James says.

***

They're having grilled cheese for lunch because Steve has sourdough, cheddar and bacon as well as some of the nicest pickle James has ever tasted, and because Steve wants grilled cheese for lunch.

“If you're veggie, I can do it veggie,” Steve says, “or if you're vegan-”

“Nooo, no, I heard you say bacon,” Becca answers, actually looking genuinely upset, “don't take that away from me, I came all the way from Brooklyn-”

“ 'Ey, bacon you want, bacon you got, okay?” 

James catches Steve's eye the next time he turns around.

“Can we git some cawfee too?” he says, and Steve first looks a little abashed and then narrows his eyes.

“Listen, doll,” Steve answers, laying it on so thick it's hard to actually figure out what he's saying, “I was hangin' around on street corners 'fore your parents was even a twinkle, so you watch ya mouth, got it?”

It's so broad that he says 'cwahnas' instead of 'corners,' and James is kind of stunned for a moment.

“Fuggedaboudit!” Becca says, throwing up her hands, and Steve points at her with a spatula.

“AH'M WALKIN' HEAH!”

“Oh my god, can you imagine if you said Iron Man like that,” James says, and Steve looks like someone's just handed him a puppy.

He says both 'Iron Man' and 'Hawk-eye' in a Brooklyn accent so eye-wateringly strong that it comes out,

“Oiyen Me-ann and Hwah-kai!”

and James just stares at him. Becca seems to have frozen. 

I'm gonna treasure this moment for the rest of my life,” she murmurs, and Steve just ticks one eyebrow up and goes back to the grilled cheese.

Rebecca gives James a look that just about screams _oh my god!!_ at top volume without her making a single sound as she turns back to face James.

“So how big is this place?” she says, and Steve laughs softly.

It's probably a whole floor, if James is right. His living room is huge and open-plan with the two couches and the coffee table, and then the dining table – at which they're seated – in reaching-out-and-touching distance of the kitchen island, with a fully kitted-out kitchen against the curved wall. It's a _nice_ kitchen, too – under cabinet lighting, all pine wood and black granite surface. 

“Is it the whole floor?” 

James shrugs. 

“I only spend my time in like three of the rooms,” he says, and Becca wrinkles her nose. 

“I don't need to hear about two of those.” She twists to look at Steve. “Does it keep going back? Is it the whole floor?”

He chuckles.

“It's the whole floor,” he says. “But I could never need so many rooms. It's nice but with this whole place, and my place in Brooklyn? Most of my things live permanently in a duffel bag.” 

On top of that, the corridor that leads off from the main room via a really huge archway (next to a fairly well-cared for indoor plant, actually,) ends in a door after a reasonable distance, and James knows she's thinking about the seven eighths of the floor that must be hidden down after the door at the end of the corridor – he can see her taking it all in.

For a couple of minutes, she and James talk between them – a little bit about Steve's décor, a little bit about general brother-sister ribbing, and Becca seems to have latched onto the coffee-date part of their story. He's never going to live it down, he's sure. Steve's being relatively quiet and James hasn't seen his sister in almost a month. She says she doesn't have news but he's pretty sure she's just being modest about it, and he gets her to fess up to a thing she's writing and another thing she's putting together out of fabric scraps, and a plan she's got to maybe travel with some of the money she's saved.

She's just said she's thinking of going to Europe when James sees Steve's head turn just a little, catching the movement out of the corner of his eye. He doesn't need to ask, though, because Steve speaks as soon as Becca's finished her sentence.

“I've only been back to Europe once or twice since the war,” he says, “or...well, maybe a few times more, but only once or twice to visit, y'know. Plenty of business, not much pleasure. There's some amazing cathedrals and galleries in Germany.”

And, of course. Of course Steve would be going to look at things in Germany – the last time he'd gone anywhere near Germany, trips to cathedrals and art galleries would have been not very likely to say the least.

“And some of the Art Deco stuff is still around in France, couple of _le metropolitain_ signs, stuff like that. Where were you thinking of going?”

Becca looks at James with her eyebrows raised as Steve starts putting the grilled cheeses on plates, but she says,

“Uh, I was thinking London, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, Rome,” she says. “Although I did always want to see the Northern Lights.”

“You should,” Steve says. “If you do nothing else, go and see them. It's like nothing you've ever seen, like a color you can never mix, it's incredible.”

He turns around, a plate in each hand and one on his arm, and sets them down on the table. James catches Becca's eye and holds up a hand where Steve can't see, and just she's frowning at him in question when Steve starts to say grace silently.

She leans back a little, like an exaggerated nod, but none of them say anything else about it.

“Any particular reason you want to do the capitals?” he asks once he's done, and she shrugs. 

“They're all the places people tell you to go,” she says. “Like the London Eye or- St Paul's cathedral. Apparently it was never bombed.”

“All of London was bombed,” Steve answers, “but they concentrated fire-fighting on the cathedral to keep it intact to boost morale. The echo inside is unreal - it's a gorgeous building. Christopher Wren.”

“Eh, I like Macintosh,” she says, and Steve puts down his cutlery so fast that James thinks he might be offended.

“Man, do I got a book for you,” he says, and he stands up from the table and disappears down the hallway.

They watch him go, watch him duck into the bedroom, and then Becca looks at him.

“You fucker,” she tells him. “I want _so_ much information from you.”

“Shut up, he's got super-hearing,” James says, by which time Steve is already coming back down the corridor.

“I do, but I'm also polite enough not to eavesdrop. Here.”

He hands her a book with a simple picture of some of the signature stained glass, and a title and authors written in the stylized text, of Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

“Oh my God,” she says. “No, I can't, I won't get it home safely-”

“No, take it,” Steve tells her, and settles back down to his sandwich. “I can get another if I-”

Becca looks like she's about to swallow her tongue when she realizes he means for her to keep it.

“No!” she says, very loudly in fact, and Steve looks at her in surprise. “Sorry!” she amends, just as suddenly. “No, I mean, you can't, I just _met_ you, you can't just give me things!”

“It's alright,” he says. “Honestly, Becca, it's fine, it's just a book. I've read it, and you'll like it, and it's only taking up space on my bookshelf.”

“You can't just...” she says, but Steve looks a little concerned.

“Just don't ever tell him you like or need things,” James says. “It's pretty easy.”

Steve looks at him.

“Is it now,” he says, not a question at all.

James grins as he shrugs.

“Thank you,” Becca says, and she says it like Steve's just given her a million dollars because, James knows, that's how Steve makes you feel. 

“You're very welcome,” Steve answers with a smile, and it's so polite, so sincere, that it might feel false from anyone else. 

James doesn't know anyone else with that level of sincerity.

“How's your sandwich?” Steve asks James, and James spears a forkful.

“Delicious,” he says, and then shoves the forkful in his mouth. “My compliments to the chef.”

Steve rolls his eyes.

“I'll be sure to pass that along,” he says. 

~

After lunch, once Steve has cleared up the plates, James excuses himself to use the bathroom, and Becca sits sideways in her chair to watch the Actual Steven Grant Rogers wash a bunch of plates after having literally actually fed her lunch.

“So what do you think?” he says and, for a second, she thinks he might have forgotten that James isn't here, but then he glances at her over his shoulder. “Am I making a good impression?”

She tilts her head to one side.

“I mean, I'll be honest, you're an older guy but we've all dreamed about older guys, so I'm not exactly worried about that. I mean, jealous? Fuck yeah.”

Steve laughs softly.

“Still though, I did wanna ask you a couple things.”

“Shoot,” Steve says, and starts on drying the plates and the pan.

“How'd you meet him?”

Steve stops what he's doing and sighs. It sounds more wistful than irritated.

“He caught my eye one afternoon when I went to see Tony Stark, who was on his floor. I saw him a while later at the coffee place from earlier, and I invited him up here,” Steve says. “Then I didn't see him for a month but we ran into each other again, and I invited him up again.”

“So it was a casual thing?” Becca says. 

“It,” he says, and then he turns around, absently drying one plate with a dishcloth as he leans back against the counter, “started out that way? But I wanted to see him again.”

Becca nods slowly.

“You know my mom and dad are just a little bit older than you.”

Steve nods.

“I know,” he says. “And I'll need to meet them at some point. I don't look bad for a hundred and eight, though, huh?”

She smiles, but there's one more thing, and it's been bugging her since about five minutes after they met.

“My brother,” she says. “You met him by accident?”

Steve puts the now-dry plate down.

“I knew his name was James,” he says. “I didn't find out the rest until last week.”

And then it's like a light comes on.

“Oh shit,” she says. “That's when he called me!”

Steve nods.

“Yeah, I...told him I needed to go, and I told him not to leave. In hindsight, it wasn't the best way to handle it but it threw me. Suddenly my dead best friend was the elephant in the room and standing right there in the forefront of my mind. I couldn't function, for a little while there, and...Yeah, we've talked about it. And I'll tell you what I told him. He looks like the James Buchanan Barnes I grew up with.”

“Bucky,” she says.

“Bucky,” he nods, and then he lifts his hand to his chest. “One of my tags is his. I loved him very much. And yes, I have a type – it just so happens that your brother fits those preferences. But it wasn't intentional, and that's not why I've started seeing him. I didn't look kids up who had his name and I didn't search for people with a particular face shape. Just one day I needed something mending, took it to my friend like I always do and...there James was, lookin' the way he does.”

She nods, minutely, and looks at his knees while she thinks.

“Do you still love Bucky Barnes?”

Steve nods.

“Yep,” he says. “Still. Doesn't mean I can't love anyone else.”

That's fair enough, she supposes.

“Becca, I know it's unusual. Both for him and me, and in general. But I've been lonely for a hell of a lot longer than I've been single and, honestly, for the first time in a very long time, I'm sharing my life and my space with someone who feels like they ought to be there.”

And Becca thinks about it for a moment, because she knows that, if there's one thing Steve Rogers is good at, it's speeches. There are YouTube compilations of him standing at podiums and talking about how lives are equal and people are people and love is love, of him standing at the front of the Pride parade every year with a microphone and color transfers on the shield and talking about how far society's come and how far it has to go, of him standing in studios and sitting in interviews and talking about everything with care and insight and thoughtfulness that went hand in hand with his sincerity.

Not once had she ever thought he was lying, and she doesn't think he's lying now.

“I don't know,” she says. “It's not like I can give you the shovel talk. You know. If you hurt him, I'll cut you, et cetera.”

Steve shakes his head as he hears James open the door from the bathroom in the en suite.

“I promise,” he says, “if I ever hurt your brother, all of my friends will cut me for you.” He holds out a hand to her. “Deal?”

She takes it.

“Deal.”

~

They're sitting on the couch later on in the afternoon, at around three-thirty, and he sunlight is warm through Steve's windows. He and James are sprawled on the couch together while Becca hangs across the end of the other couch, close enough that she could prod Steve's knee. Which she does.

“You eat all of that, are you serious?”

Steve grins, reaching out for his coffee when there's a noise that James recognizes from his orientation training. Its a single repeating tone – one repetition every two seconds – which is both fairly loud and fairly irritating. 

James is sitting upright before he realizes it and then he and Becca are sitting there kinda shell-shocked, while Steve hurtles down the corridor to the bedroom. He's surprisingly light on his feet and, even more surprisingly, halfway into his uniform by the time he reemerges about twenty seconds later.

James....didn't know he could do that.

He's also digging his finger into his ear.

“...but I copy. Get us airborne, we'll brief on the way.”

He crosses the room and James would think he's forgotten they exist, except that he grabs the back of the couch, bends down to kiss the top of James' head, and then nods at Becca.

“Miss,” he says. 

And then he's....gone. 

“Wow,” Becca says after a few seconds of them both sitting in stunned silence. “Hurricane Rogers.”

James has just started to realize how cold he is without Commander Furnace to lie all over, and he frowns.

“Right,” he says, trying to sound decisive even though it feels like he's been picked up and shaken.

“So...I mean, do we leave?” she says.

“No,” James tells her. “No, he doesn't mind if I'm here alone. Jarvis, are you allowed to tell me what happened?”

 _“I'm afraid that information is classified,”_ Jarvis answers, and Becca _ducks_ in shock.

“Sorry,” James mutters to her.

_“Might I suggest some entertainment?”_

And he puts on the television projection, which just so happens to be on the news.

“Whoa,” Becca says.

“Thank you, Jarvis,” James says.

_“Of course.”_

Flood, it looks like, in China – but it's not just a flood, it's some kind of problem with a massive dam, which is why they need the Avengers. They're hoping to shore it up before anything gets worse.

“Wow,” James says. 

It's...bad.

“Yeah,” Becca murmurs. “What do you want to do?”

James chews his lip and shakes his head.

“Jarvis, can you mute it?” he says. 

The enormous projection falls silent. 

“Please would you notify me if there's anything relevant to-” and it sticks in his throat.

Isn't that something.

He has to swallow hard before he can continue.

“Anything relevant to the wellbeing of the individual Avengers?”

 _“Establishing notification settings_ ” Jarvis answers. “ _Confimed._ ”

“Thanks,” James says.

 _“You are welcome, Sir._ “

And, because Becca is a wonderful sister even though James would rather eat his own arm than admit it, she starts asking him about the apartment, and what he and Steve do for fun that he'd admit to his mother, and what he wants to have for an evening meal.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Good evening, Commander,”_ says the middle-aged man already on the screen. _“My name is Shang Lingwei, I am your contact; we will coordinate with your team.”_
> 
> “ _Zǎoshang hǎo,_ Lingwei,” Steve says, because it's morning in China, straightening his shoulders as he lowers his head sharply in the best approximation of a bow that he can give via video. “ _Wèile wǒ de tóngshì de lìyì,_ I will be speaking in English. What is the damage so far?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter!  
> Some translations are down at the bottom, some you won't need because it's either obvious or not relevant, and some I'm not providing on purpose. All of them, however, are phonetic and have come from google translate, so my sincere apologise to anyone who understands the actual language.

“What is it?” Steve says, fastening the closures on his jacket before he loads his glock and puts it back in the holster.

“Four hours away, for a start,” Sam says. “Stark'll get there first but there's a dam in China that's in bad shape.

The ramp closes behind Steve, which is just as well because they're taking off.

“Where in China?” he says, hitting the 'display' button on the table, and Jarvis pulls it in for them.

“Shaanxi Province,” Wanda says.

Steve nods.

“Alright,” he says. “Current sitrep?”

“They're evacuating the dam but they're trying to hit the emergency breakers, too, and there are people who don't want to leave because they don't feel the danger is great enough,” Nat says. “Teams are being extracted from the dry riverbed – a couple of maintenance and repair crews – but it's mainly controllable. There shouldn't be any towns in trouble if it goes, the whole riverbed is kept mostly clear, but there's conflicting information about structural stability and there are a couple of villages need evac so we're pulling everybody in except New York reserve in case there's trouble at home.”

Steve nods.

“Who are we in contact with?” he asks, and this time Clint hands him a tablet, unmuting it as he passes it over.

 _“Good evening, Commander,”_ says the middle-aged man already on the screen. _“My name is Shang Lingwei, I am your contact; we will coordinate with your team.”_

“ _Zǎoshang hǎo,_ Lingwei,” Steve says, because it's morning in China, straightening his shoulders as he lowers his head sharply in the best approximation of a bow that he can give via video. “ _Wèile wǒ de tóngshì de lìyì,_ I will be speaking in English. What is the damage so far?”

 _“The integrity of the dam is questionable,”_ Lingwei says.

Behind Mr Shang, Steve can see the dam itself, with people running around. There is a crack in the facade, but it's not discernible whether or not the damage is structural or cosmetic.

“We will assist you with the evacuation of remaining employees – our estimated time of arrival is three hours and forty-five minutes, but Iron Man should be on site in approximately two hours and forty minutes,” Steve says. “We will need translators for rescue teams, as the members of my party do not all speak Mandarin. Iron Man is able to use translation software, and Black Widow can also speak many languages. However, my Cantonese is limited.”

_“We are contacting translators. We have several workers inside the dam beyond the break, and one of our engineers is coming to assess the damage.”_

“Can you ask them to wait until we arrive?” Steve asks, but Lingwei shakes his head.

 _“Our head of corporation is anxious to know the extent of the issue,”_ he says. _“But the remaining teams have been removed from the riverbed. There is the issue of a village in five kilometers down the old riverbed, in case of overflowing.”_

“Understood,” Steve says. “We will be calling other teams for assistance, who will follow shortly after our arrival.”

 _“We are grateful for your help, Commander,”_ Lingwei tells him. _“I will introduce you to my colleagues.”_

~

When Steve has finished talking to Lingwei, he sits with the tablet and familiarizes himself with the layout and the blueprints of the dam. It's a lot – the thing is huge – but the map has been marked with main routes and the sections in which people are still clocked in. There are, apparently, around seventy people, although live updates show fewer each time. That's a good thing in general for loss-of-life – fewer people in the disaster area is fewer people in trouble – but it's not a great sign if all the engineers are abandoning ship.

The blueprints, too, are extensive, but there are clear points of vulnerability. Ordinarily, they'd be just another part of the dam, but assessment is ongoing and, if the on-site engineers find that the damage is structural, the whole dam could go, under certain circumstances.

But, considering this is a three and three-quarter hour journey, and they're barely half an hour in by the time Steve is _au fait_ with the plans and blueprints, he grabs a water bottle and a sachet from his belt and mixes a nutritional supplement to neck, before he settles in for a nap.

They'll wake him if any information comes through before they arrive, and none of them have any idea how long they'll be out there for. At best, it'll be a fast assessment, a couple of scans, and another four hour journey home but, worst case baseline scenario, they're looking at a potential dam collapse. As long as everyone's out, that means great expense and long-term cleanup.

Steve tries not to think about it as he shuts his eyes. He'll be thinking about nothing but, very soon.

~

True to form, Steve gets woken ten minutes before they land – enough for more nutrition and a quick wash so that he's wide awake, and to radio in with landing coordinates – and notes that it's oh-seven-fifteen.

There is new information, but it wasn't worth waking him for given that they couldn't get there any faster – Tony's preliminary scans show damage that's a lot more than superficial but, for the time being, evacuation and preparation can continue. They're still hoping to shore it up, but whether that's a practical assumption remains to be seen.

Clint brings the jet in maybe half a mile down from the dam, giving them a good look at the river behind it and the water flowing in the old riverbed in front of it before they land, and Steve doesn't need to worry about his team following him – he knows they're right behind him. He just waits for the ramp to lower and leaves.

There's a lot of noise – vehicles moving, a helicopter, the chatter of one or two news reporters, people shouting in Mandarin, the roar of moving water, and the whine of the jet's engines winding down, as well as the distant klaxon from the dam's internal structure. In the midst of it all, Lingwei is waiting for them. Steve bows first, and then shakes his hand.

 _“Nǐ hǎo,”_ he says. “Shang Linwei?”

Lingwei nods.

 _“Shì,_ welcome, Commander,” he answers, and then he gestures to the riverbed and the enormous concrete structure of the dam. “We are still conducting assessments. Current damage does not appear superficial but evacuation is hindered by the structural failures.”

Steve doesn't like the sound of that _at_ all, but there are a few courses of action to take, especially now that the emergency spillway to the side of the dam has been opened, as well as the sluiceways. Still, the water seems to be rising in the old riverbed, and there's plenty of rubble around the place.

He knows from the briefing info that the dam was only finished a few months ago. Cleanup hasn't yet concluded, and he can see, on the other side of the old riverbed, small teams of people moving around.

“Thank you,” he says. “We will coordinate teams to provide necessary assistance. Please inform your emergency services, and get those guys on the other side out of the way. I don't want 'em there if this goes.” Then he presses his finger to his ear to activate his earpiece, the roaring of the water upstream causing enough noise that it might be an issue if his hearing weren't so good. “Tony, what'cha got?”

 _“Ah, Little Boy Blue!”_ Tony's voice answers. _“Better late than never - structural damage is currently not-critical although it could change given the volume of water we're holding back. It's gonna take some...pretty extreme measures to counter this one but lucky for us extreme is what I do. I'm sending employee locations to the jet – we need to coordinate for rescue 'cause they're not gettin' outta there without a little one-on-one.”_

Steve bites back a curse.

“Fine,” he says. “Sam, take a look from the air and lemme know what you find,” and Sam is in the air before he's done speaking, “Wanda, let the Avengers incoming know about the current situation and put all flyers on first response – I want anyone who can get in the air up there A-S-A-F-P – then see what you can do about shoring the larger structural elements. Clint, you're our eyes for a reason, nothing gets past you, and Nat make sure everyone understands each other, I'm calling you SIC for this.”

“What can we do?” Lingwei asks, and Steve shakes his head.

“For the time being, most of what must be done is being done. I will make sure we know where the trapped employees are,” he says, because beating around the bush won't help. If they can't get out, they're trapped, and that makes them the first priority. “We'll see to them first, make sure we have entry points, and we'll figure out how long we can keep this thing standing. Any questions so far?”

Nobody asks any.

“Good,” Steve says.

~

The news tells James that the first of several groups of Avengers – which explains the repeated Assemble alarms twenty minutes after Steve left – arrive at the scene at around seven-fifteen US time, having taken the kind of quinjet that travels at Mach two-point-five.

There's a dam, in China, and there are people trapped inside. James sits down – isn't really sure when he stood up.

“Uh,” he says.

Rebecca's hand is on his arm and he closes his eyes.

 _This_ is what Steve meant.

And those three words spring up again in the back of James' mind, right after 'please don't die.'

“Fuck,” he says, “fuck. I need- I need something to do, Becca, what can we-”

“We'll watch a movie,” she says. “Do you have your laptop? We'll start with that.”

~

For the most part, the duties are preventative and preparative. Sam's herded curious parties away from the edge of the water – doesn't matter what country, the rubberneckers are all the same – and Nat's been organizing some of the EMTs to a guy whose vehicle turned over with a mudslide. (The guy will be fine but the EMTs didn't speak English, and the casualty didn't speak Mandarin.)

But by the time Steve's done with logistics, poring over more blueprints with some of the engineers on a rickety pop-up table that threatens to topple even as the wind tries to snatch the paper away from them, they've all figured out that powered is best, given that the non-powered might not have the speed to get out. They'll go in twos, Sam and Wanda, Steve and Tony, Scott and Hope, one flyer with one can't-flyer wherever possible. If things go south, it may be that boots on the ground become impossible, besides the fact that some of these people may be injured and might need a different exit strategy.

But something changes. He _feels_ the shift in the situation, which is a sensation that's saved him more than once, and he lifts his head just as Clint's voice comes through on the comm.

 _“Steve, there's movement on the top of the dam,”_ he says, and Steve spins to look.

Steve pulls the tiny set of binoculars he has from one of the pouches on his belt, and takes a look – his eyes are good enough that low tech will do it.

But all he sees is someone going back inside, like a lunatic.

“Christ,” he says, “don't they know we can airlift them out?”

The other Avengers are landing, finally, thank God, but something's up. Something's different, more wrong, and Steve's learned not to try and shake the feeling – he can't put his finger on it but he'll be damned if he lets indecisiveness cost lives.

One of his first orders as the leader of the Avengers, way back when, was that everyone be fitted with emergency homing beacons, with remote activation under the I-won't-go-through-it-again mentality and, of the powered members anyway, pretty much everyone had agreed. Nobody else would survive a flash-freeze like that anyway, but it never hurt to have a means of retrieval, and it means there's something to home in during times like these, if the need arises.

Steve turns to look at the water – there's more of it, coming faster, so the sluiceways must be full open now, and he doesn't like the look of the dam. The cracks are bigger, deeper, and pieces crumble as he watches.

He shakes his head.

“Something's up and I ain't waitin',” he says, jamming his helmet on, already moving when he secures the chinstrap. “Avengers, I want parties in, we're going in for the trapped and getting everyone the hell out, move!”

They move as they've always moved – together, because that's how they're trained – and Steve knows exactly where the entrance on top of the dam is. Someone was there just a few seconds ago, so maybe they're not far, maybe they'll lead him to others.

“Iron Man,” he says, and Tony – who's just about the only one who can carry Steve comfortably aside from Thor – steps up to him so they can take off together, and they head for the top of the dam.

~

“No, are you shitting me, they're going _inside_ it _now_?” James says.

~

The inside of the superstructure is like any new installation of its kind – the walls are smooth and white and lit with florescent lights, and beacon lights flash red at regular intervals. The main power's still on, which means nobody's got to the breakers, which means the dam's still at full power. Steve's not sure he wants to know what happens if turbines the size of a small apartment come free from their casings.

Stark splits off to find the breakers – he can _detect_ them, so homing in will be much faster than Steve searching the various rooms to find which ones haven't been thrown – and Steve uses the information from previous scans to head in the general direction of heat signatures.

His steps echo in the long corridors as he runs, and he takes a left at one junction because he knows there's a fault in the concrete if he takes a right.

“Sitrep,” he says, and voices come in in alphabetical order, in various states of affirmation.

They've already found some people, they're aware of the positions of others, they're finding alternate routes for still more of them. Steve's heading for one of the main control rooms and tries to ignore the unease that starts to creep in on the edges of what he's doing because he knows where it comes from – instict.

His body knows he's travelling down, and knows the best way out is to travel up. One of the things the serum could never change was how a human body reacts to being put in danger, even when Steve's the one doing it on purpose. His stomach still turns, the hair on the back of his neck still rises, and something in the back of his mind still tells him to leave.

There are two control rooms in the section he's heading for – _Èr_ and _Yī_ – and he reaches _Èr_ to find four people still at consoles – three Asian and one white.

 _“Lìjí chèlí.”_ he says and then, for the benefit of the white guy, “evacuate now.”

One of the Asian guys turns around.

 _“¿Qué?”_ he says, and Steve grits his teeth.

_“Mis disculpas - evacuar inmediatamente.”_

“No, we can't leave,” the white guy says, and that's a Boston accent if ever Steve heard one, “the breakers are still-”

“Forget it, the damage is growing and we're working under the worst-case of losing the dam. Evacuate now, or I'll pull people in to get you out regardless.”

The guy looks pissed, but they all start to step away from their consoles.

“Take corridor thirty-three, _Shǐyòng zǒuláng Sānshísān, utilizar el corredor treinta y tres_ , and get out, now. Who's the supervisor?”

One of the Asian guys holds up a hand.

“Okay,” he says. “Then these guys are your responsibility. Just get to the top of the dam and wave and scream and someone will pick you up, and do it fast. Okay?”

The guy nods.

“Okay,” he says, and the party leave.

“Lingwei, I'm in control room _Èr_ \- is there anything else to be done from here?”

 _“Negative,”_ Lingwei answers, and Steve looks around the empty control rooms and the bright screens with their growing numbers, the flashing consoles. _“Iron Man must throw breakers, Tsai Li Ming in_ Yī _controls the water flow.”_

For a room like this to be empty is unnatural, like videos of mission control in Houston but without the people - and it feels as weird as it looks, but that's not why Steve's frowning. The sluiceways are open – in fact, everything that can be open is open because they're trying to drain as much of the reservoir as possible in case the structure goes – better to have the thing nearly empty than an entire reservoir full of water screaming down (and overflowing from) the old riverbed.

So why is one of their lead engineers still in the main control room?

“How's evac on the villages in the valley?” he says as he leaves, the klaxon still blaring, the beacon lights still spinning, feet pounding on painted concrete as a noise like thunder shakes the structure around him.

 _“The villages are evacuated,”_ Lingwei says.

“Roger – Iron Man, do you copy?”

 _“Copy,”_ Tony answers, and there must be something up for him to provide a straight answer.

Steve actually has another question – why the fuck have they built the main control room so far down?

~

It takes him five minutes detouring to reach control room _Yī_. There are leaks, cracks, entire missing sections of walkway, and Steve shakes his head as he tries yet another workaround, metal groaning.

“Iron Man, have you hit those damned breakers y-”

And then suddenly, horrifyingly, everything goes dark aside from the eerie red strobe of the beacon lights.

 _“What was that, Old Glory?”_ and the smugness is audible even over the comm link.

“I'm not Old fucking Glory, Tony, that's Sam, and I need you here if you're done with the breakers, you just dropped my visibility to maybe thirty percent.”

The walkway under Steve protests, and then sags, and then Steve is taking a long jump to the nearest enclosed corridor as the walkway shears through its bolts. Yeah, the place is coming down, probably within the next twenty minutes.

“Everybody else out now unless you're escort!” he yells into his comm, and then he runs – not just for his life but for Tsai Li Ming's, too. “Anyone still trapped?”

 _“Negative, negative,”_ Clint answers. _“Only people left in there is you._ ”

~

It's hard to see where he's going in the red strobe, hard to know where to turn, and thank god for homing beacons 'cause he's not sure he'd be getting out otherwise.

As he comes up on Control Room _Yī_ , he discovers it's an absolute disaster.

He knows it will be when the lights on the corridor ceilings become less and less embedded. One has a crack, the next hangs down and, after that, there's concrete and wiring and dust everywhere. Steve knows, because he's good at his job and he paid attention, that the damage shouldn't be here.

So what the fuck is going on?

The control room appears empty at first, the screens flashing red and white text so that the consoles look like jagged rocks in the midst of hell – Steve wants to leave immediately, but there's movement on the other side of the vast room just as more of the thunderous booming vibrates the floor, and the doorway he's standing in starts to crumble.

“TSAI LI MING,” he shouts, “WE HAVE TO GET OUT, THE DAM'S COLLAPSING!”

But if she hears, she takes no notice. There's a sound like a giant plank of wood snapping and then a thick black crack races past Steve in the floor, a shower of small pieces of concrete raining down on his head from the ceiling. He screws his eyes shut – he really can't afford to be blinded – but he can see her moving when he looks again.

Can he? Is that her?

 _“W ŎMEN BÌXŪ CHÈLÍ! DÀ BÀ ZHÈNGZÀI BĒNGKUÌ!_!” he tries, because maybe she doesn't speak English, but she ducks down, moves.

There's a noise like nails down a chalkboard, and Steve runs before he registers why, legs moving as the metal inner structure of the concrete starts to push through, upward like tectonic plates meeting, consoles twisting as the rebars begin to lance upward through the floor and then down through the ceiling – the whole structure is twisting, the doorway is probably gone, and so is most of the floor, and so he's got no choice but to follows her out onto another walkway as he starts to cough from the dust, the red light sending lancing beams through air that's getting thicker and thicker.

Great.

“Lingwei, does Tsai Li Ming speak English?”

 _“Christ, Steve, get the fuck out!”_ Sam says, and Steve can't go back, he has to go forward.

There's no back to go to.

 _“She can speak English,”_ Lingwei shouts, _“but you must leave, now!”_

“Tony,” Steve says, holding onto the rail as the structure shifts again – it won't do him much good if the whole thing falls but, “where are you!?”

“ _I'm almost there, hold on,”_ Tony says, and Steve has to try, he's got to get her out if he can.

“YOU NEED TO LEAVE WITH ME!” he shouts. “LI MING, THE DAM IS COLLAPSING NOW!”

But he loses sight of her for a precious few seconds, then hears her cry out over the groaning of the metal and the rumbling of the concrete and the almost alien sounds of the support wires and bars snapping under strain, and then he sees her, in the black and red of the emergency lighting, speared through on twisted metal.

The walkway sags, tips, and he loses his footing, sheared-off metal digging deep into his lower leg and dragging, but he can't let the pain take his breath away, can't stop to deal with it, can't let go of the metal so he half-climbs the once-handrail like a ladder to reach her but it's too late.

Her eyes are glassy and she rasps wetly, blood dark around her mouth even in the red light.

“ _Nǐ méiyǒu,_ ” she says, her voice a rasping gurgle, “ _zhǔnbèi h-hǎo...Nǐ...huì_ -ah! Ah, _hèi...h...èi..._ ”

And then she goes limp, like some kind of awful marionette with its strings cut,

 _“STEVE!”_ and that's Tony's voice, Steve lifts his head and looks for him in the dark and the dust and the spraying water and, _"Step on, we're getting' outta here.”_

Steve does, and Tony flares his repulsors, gets them back to one of the corridors that isn't fucking twisting out of its own shoring, and then helps Steve limp along as fast as possible.

 _“What happened?”_ he says but Steve, one arm over Tony's metal shoulders, shakes his head as he winces.

“No idea,” he says. “I asked her to leave and she ran away from me, and then the whole control room started caving in. Next time I got close to her, she was on that metal rail and she didn't say much before she died. I have no idea what the fuck is going on.”

~

Something changes. James sees it happen because he's not paying attention to the movie, he's watching the silent news – suddenly there's more movement, more people, and they're all...

They're all running in the same direction.

“Jarvis, unmute it!” James says, and then-

There's the sound of a helicopter, of rushing water, of something that sounds like construction work and people are shouting. James wishes he'd learned more from Amy 'cause the reporter's shouting into her microphone but he's only catching words like people and move, and Avengers is a loanword so it's clearly audible.

 _”Translating,”_ Jarvis says, and then a voice overlays-

 _“-collapsing.”_ James' heart leaps up into his throat. _“The remaining evacuation was hindered by the presence of a repair team brought onsite, led by engineer Tsai Li Ming who is currently still inside the dam-”_

“Fuck,” James whisper, “no,” because he knows exactly what that means.

 _“-and a retrieval party was dispatched a short time ago_ -”

James knows who's leading it.

 _“-led by Commander Steven Rogers, formerly Captain America, and Tony Stark's Iron Man._ ”

~

Steve's boot squeaks on the painted concrete and he doesn't need to look back to know he's leaving smears of blood along the corridor. They're mainly travelling by the light of the arc reactor and Steve's starting to feel woozy, the red beacon lights only making it worse.

They go up one corridor, up another corridor but then, then it feels like an earthquake, and the floor splits in front of them, and then a pipe, and then a thin spray of water breaks through the wall ahead, then another, then another directly into Steve's face that Tony helpfully moves him out of.

And then there's what sounds like a stampede.

“Shit,” Steve mutters, looking back over his shoulder, because he knows what several hundred tons of water rushing down a fucking corridor sounds like.

 _“Alright,”_ Tony says, yanking them to a painful halt to haul Steve close. _“Hold on tight, Steve,”_ he says, wrapping Steve in his metal arms, planting one gauntlet on the top of Steve's helmet, and Steve will, Jesus, “ _keep your head down, I don't have time to be careful.”_

Steve does, tucks his face down against the metal breastplate and holds on for dear life as rushing air surrounds them, ignoring the agony in his leg in favor of picturing the sunlight he'll see when this is over.

~

“Fuck,” James says, and he stands up to get closer to the projected screen. “Shit me.”

 _“It's not known at this time-”_ but that's it.

That's as far as she gets because, behind the reporter, the dam visibly crumbles, pieces falling away as the water surges into the valley, and that's it.

The camera stays on the collapsing dam as clouds of concrete dust billow up, white water spurts bigger than houses, skyscraper-sized pieces of metal and concrete tumbling down.

“Where is he?” James says, more to himself than anything, and the reporter's still talking, still going on and on about the dam, about all the information they've had up to this point.

It's useless, incessant but then-

_“Kàn! Kàn nà biān!”_

And the camera moves, swings around and that's...

That's Iron Man, _carrying_ Steve. Steve is upright because that's how he's being held, but he doesn't look conscious.

“Fuck,” James says. “Oh, fuck.”

His throat hurts, and his eyes prickle, and then EMTs and other team members are swarming the two little figures and Steve is being lowered to the ground but-

“He's moving,” Becca says. “Look, he's moving!”

And James looks, can't see it for a long few seconds but that's Steve's hand, and it does move. Is someone moving it for him? Someone's taking his helmet off, cradling the back of Steve's sandy blond head in one hand as they lower him.

_“-medical assistance for Commander Rogers but it is now being confirmed that most of the remaining evacuees have escaped.”_

The camera goes in and out of focus a bit and then pulls away and James- James could murder that camera man, but Becca puts a hand on his arm again.

“He was moving, Jamie,” she says, and he looks up.

“Jarvis, can you tell me anything at all?”

_“I'm afraid I'm unable to provide any information at this time; your security clearance does not permit me to provide further insight.”_

James sits down again.

~

Sam was, and he's not ashamed to admit it, terrified.

The Avengers are not idiots, not amateurs. They know that nobody is is immortal, that none of them will live forever, and that they are more likely to succumb simply from the nature of their job.

Still, though everyone's well clear of the dam by the time it really goes, it's not until Hawkeye shouts,

“THERE!” and points to a tiny speck of light thrown upward from the huge disastrous collapse of the facade of the dam, thousands upon thousands of tons of metal and concrete and water toppling downward and forward, that anyone really breathes.

Because it's not an errant piece of dam – it's Iron Man, and he's holding the former Captain America.

There are reporters and engineers and EMTs and even just plain old bystanders but most are focused on the horrific spectacle unfolding behind Steve and Tony as Tony comes in to land.

Still, Nat shouts for help in Mandarin and people get moving, swarming around Steve, who hasn't even tried to stand. Actually, it's worse than that – he isn't even moving.

It's as they lower him to the floor that Sam sees the state of him. He's filthy, there's a lot of blood on him, his leg is fucked and, when they take off his helmet, he looks like someone's hit him over the head with a chair. His eyes are open, he's blinking, he's breathing, but he's unresponsive otherwise.

“Can you hear me, Steve?” Nat asks, and Steve blinks a little more at her, takes in all the faces of all the people peering down at him, and says,

“Yeah, I hear you.”

Sam reels in relief, can't help it, and a good few others do too, but that's for the best. Sam stays because field medicine is something he can do in his sleep.

“It's okay,” Tony's saying, “he's a little dazed 'cause I had to take a shortcut, but he'll be fine.”

But Sam's staring down at Steve.

“You damn fool,” he says. “Good to see you.”

Steve just, for once, lets the people who know best take care of him.

***

The journey back to New York is fucking difficult and fucking irritating, and they don't have anaesthetic enough to kill the pain but Steve doesn't want to be put under anyway. They've sorted him out in-situ for the most part but it hurts like nobody's business. Stiff and achy and worse when the nerves reform, the healing process is always awful, and he goes over what precious little information he has as a distraction while his leg itches like hell. He also drinks a lot and naps some because they know from experience that the best way for him to deal with injuries is to make sure the serum has what it needs to heal him.

Still, his report is going to be woefully empty – he found the lead engineer, she _ran from him_ in a section where the damage shouldn't yet have been, and then slipped and impaled herself on a railing. The biggest problem is that that's _actually what happened_ even though it would sound like the shittiest cover-up in history if they didn't all have body cams. As it is, Steve's got no idea if the camera could pick up what he was seeing, the whole place was so dark.

_Sorry, sir, when she and I were alone together she ran away from my rescue, slipped and impaled herself when I couldn't see._

It's a fucking joke, and Steve is pissed.

He doesn't like losing people, and he doesn't like being lied to – this is both, and he knows because nobody's explaining why the hell a chief engineer meant to assist in trying to keep the dam intact was in the middle of a cave-in and ran from extraction.

He goes over it and over it – if he'd been faster, if he'd found a better alternative route, if he'd managed to clear the guys out of the first control room more quickly, there are infinite numbers of things that could be changed. If they'd landed the jet closer, if Steve had started to run before he did, if they'd looked at the map in the jet instead of on that table...

It doesn't do any good to consider every way the day might have gone differently, and he's learned to think past it, however hard it might be. You do your best, you give your all, and if you can't save everyone then it's a tragedy. But obsessing over it won't help – in fact, it could mean you second-guess it next time. Hindsight is twenty-twenty but it doesn't mean a thing unless you learn from your mistakes.

Steve's other reason to be pissed is that, when the jet lands at four in the morning, he and Clint are the only ones aboard.

He'll be out of action for seventy-two hours, if previous similar assessments are anything to go by. Dr Aman will confirm it, of course. But Steve knows that he's not only got to debrief before he can go back downstairs to bed, he also isn't allowed on the return flight. Because if they let him go back, he won't sit still, and then he won't heal anyway. So that puts him off cleanup for a good three days, then someone has to come back and collect him, and that's if they're not done by then. China has their own people for cleanup, because every country does, and that's what this operation is now.

By the time they land, he can almost put his weight on his leg, but Clint helps him down the ramp and into the infirmary anyway. Dr Aman is in today – by himself for the most part, with other medical staff asleep in quarters downstairs. It's almost like a mini hospital, mainly so nobody's taking bedspace from civilians in the event of any disasters.

“It's fucking ridiculous,” Steve says to Clint. “It's only my fucking leg.”

“Yep,” Clint agrees. “Good job video links just need voices, right?”

Steve narrows his eyes, however right he knows Clint is, and lets Clint help him onto the hospital bed.

Clint leaves soon after, and then Dr Aman takes a look at the huge gash in Steve's leg – it runs down the outside of his leg from almost his knee to just about his ankle, and there are sections now that need seeing to again given how long he's been in the jet for. The advantages of super healing – stitches pull, skin knits over debris and wounds that have been seen to need to be seen to again almost immediately.

“You will need to stay in New York for three days,” Dr Aman says, and Steve nods.

“Yeah, I know,” he says, but still, “I appreciate you doin' this at stupid o'clock in the morning.”

Dr Aman smiles.

“That's what we do, you and I,” he says, and he leaves Steve some clothes to change into while the uniform goes back into the tower's chutes to be analysed and cleaned, or stripped and destroyed.

But, as it turns out, there's another reason for leaving him by himself.

“Mind tellin' me what happened?”

And it's not sudden enough to make Steve jump because he knew there was someone there. What he didn't realize was that it was Nick Fury instead of one of the orderlies.

“Christ, Nick, you've always been theatrical about it but really? How long you been standin' in the shadows?”

Fury chuckles as he comes to stand at the foot of Steve's bed, and Steve raises one eyebrow.

“I'm in my underwear, you asshole,” he says and, actually, he's in a white tee and blue boxers, because that's what he wears for underwear when he's wearing the uniform.

“What happened, Cap?” Fury says.

Steve doesn't correct him – if he hasn't stopped by now, he's never going to.

“I went after their engineer. When I told her to get out, she ran from me,” he answers. “She kept running from me and the whole place was comin' down.”

“You couldn't retrieve her?”

“Nick,” Steve says, and he makes sure to look at Nick then, makes sure Nick knows how serious it is. “She was in a section that shouldn't have been _touched_ but the place looked like a goddamn shitshow, she ran from me when I tried to _rescue_ her, and she was maybe twenty feet ahead of me when she ducked outta sight and got impaled on a piece of metal. I'm not convinced she even _wanted_ a rescue. With her last breath, Nick, she told me, ' _Nǐ méiyǒu zhǔnbèi hǎo._ 'You are unprepared.'”

Fury watches him carefully, that same assessing gaze that he's always had. Whatever he's looking for, he come to a decision soon enough.

“Tower got security?”

“Jarvis, security blackout on the room,” Steve says without hesitation.

_“Of course, Sir.”_

Fury smiles, a small, wry little thing.

“Corporate espionage,” Fury says. “She was selling secrets and she went back to get them.”

“You're fucking kidding,” Steve says. “All this for money?”

Fury gives him a lift of one shoulder, as if to tell him _c'est la vie._

“It's cute you're still surprised. Lives are lives, Cap, what you did was commendable. I'll have to phrase my explanation carefully when it comes to the Chinese authorities but she ran from you because she knew the jig was up.”

Steve stares at Fury for a few moments longer.

“And the damage?” he says. “The fact that it looked like someone was tearing the room apart?”

“One of the other things she knew about was how many corners had been cut,” Fury answers. “It's how she got away with it so long. Blackmail. About terrible workmanship.”

Steve winces, shakes his head. The sun's already well on its way to being up and, suddenly, he's very tired.

“What a mess,” he says.

“That's what they have cleanup for,” Fury answers. “Thank you, Jarvis.”

_”Blackout lifted. You're welcome, Director.”_

~

Jarvis confirms the jet has landed when James feels the tower shake at about four and asks. Becca's dozing on the couch and James is just sitting there wide awake because, apparently, he can't go up without clearance.

It's half an hour after that that Jarvis tells him Steve's on his way back to his living quarters, and James stands up when Steve limps in dressed in a gray tee and blue scrub pants, with hospital slippers on, a small duffel in one hand. He looks ridiculous, hair all over the place, concrete dust in some of the lines of his skin, a clear tidemark over the lower half of his face where he was wearing his helmet.

He also looks momentarily surprised to see James awake, and then his expression falls.

“Aw, Sweetheart, you watched the news, didn't you?”

For a moment, James isn't sure what to do, but then Steve lowers the duffel over the back of the couch to put it down, and then holds out a hand, and James goes over to him and wraps his arms around Steve.

Steve lowers his head to James', rests his cheek against the top of James' skull as he holds him back, Becca stirring on the couch.

“I'm sorry, kiddo,” he says.

“It looked so bad,” James whispers. “You... Iron Man had you-”

“He's the fast ride,” Steve answers. “When we realized it was comin' down, he got us out. I couldn't run 'cause I...” he visibly pauses, looks at both of them. “I caught my leg on somethin' and then movin' was hard...”

He looks down and James pulls back to look down, too. Yeah, one of Steve's ankles is bound in thick, white bandage that dissapears up into the trouser leg.

“Shit,” he whispers.

“Mmh, hi, glad you're okay?” Becca says, and Steve nods in acknowledgement.

“Hi,” he says, "did you guys spend the whole night on the couch?”and James just stares up at him, can't take his eyes off Steve, he's so glad to be able to look at him.

“Yeah,” he says.

They really did – the sky's been getting lighter for a while.

“Well look,” Steve says, “if- Becca, if you want to stay here, I've got a spare room – I've got a _lot_ of spare room. If you wanna, y'know. Nap on an actual bed before you head home, or even if you just wanna stay. I'm off duty for the next seventy-two while my leg heals but then I'll be back on duty again, someone's covering me.”

“Uh,” she says, and looks at James.

James can't look at her, he's too busy looking at Steve.

“Nah,” she says eventually, sounding like she knows she's made the right decision. “I'm gonna head out, I can get home.”

“Becca, please,” he says, reaching out to catch her hand in his. “Wait a minute, let me arrange for you to get home. You've been up all night and you kept James company for me, it's the least I can do. Jarvis, can you provide standard transport?”

 _“Of course, Sir,”_ Jarvis answers. _“Miss Barnes, a driver will be waiting for you when you reach the lobby.”_

She raises her eyebrows but nods.

“Damn,” she says, and Steve winces.

“I know,” he says. “It's not something I do often, but it is something I do for friends. Are you sure you won't stay? I'm off physical work now, you can get up in the middle of the day and we can have brunch?”

She hugs his arm, because James is busy hugging the rest of him.

“I'm glad you're okay,” she says again, patting his bicep, and he smiles. “But I'm going home.”

“Alright,” he says. “Let us know when you're home.”

“Will do,” she says. “Bye, James.”

“Love you,” James says. “Don't tell Mom and Dad-”

“I'm not an idiot, James,” she says, and then she leaves, as though it's not almost five in the morning, as though she hasn't spent the night on Steve Rogers' couch.

“You could have died,” James says and Steve looks at him, tucks his fingers under James' chin.

“I could,” he says. “Because that's my job.”

James had known, of course he had. That's what Steve Rogers does – he was the first to do it, according to history books. There's a reason he's called the First Avenger.

He and Steve haven't been together long, and James isn't about to ask that Steve gives up his day job. Apart from being a selfish thing to ask, there's no way Steve would do it. He's too good a man for that. The world needs him and people like him too much for that.

“James,” Steve says, and James tries to catch his breath.

“I know,” he says, “I know. I know this is what you do. I can't not worry, obviously, but it's....I didn't know how you were or if you...”

Steve nods.

“I know,” he says. “In a little while, we'll set up a check-in system. I can't do it now, you need to have known me for longer, but I can look into it. James...”

But James shakes his head.

“I can't imagine it,” he says. “I can't imagine doing what you do, do you need anything?”

Steve looks at him.

“How do you mean?” he asks, and James pulls away again, looks down again.

“You shouldn't be on your feet, did you sleep?”

Steve cocks his head.

“I slept a little,” he says. “But I can-”

“Okay, we're going to bed,” James says. “And I know it's Sunday but you're not going to church.”

“James, I'll be fine-” Steve says, but James slides his arm around Steve's waist.

“I'm sure,” he says. “But maybe I need to sleep and I'd do it better with you in bed next to me, think of that?”

Steve lets himself be pulled along a little way but then he stops, turns James back.

“You're taking this better than I expected,” he says.

James looks him up and down.

“What did you want, for me to run away because I can't handle what you do for a living? For me to ask you to stop because my poor heart can't take it?”

Steve blinks, obviously thrown a little.

“I hate it,” James says. “You told me I would, and I do. I watched an entire fucking dam come down on you, but I wouldn't tell my cousin not to be in the Army. I wouldn't tell my friend Amy's dad not to be a cop or my supervisor's sister not to be a Surgeon. You know that phrase, 'not all heroes wear capes?' Well I couldn't do what you do, most people couldn't.”

Steve pulls him close again, kisses him. He tastes really fucking weird.

“I have to shower before I get in bed,” he says, as though to validate this, and James shakes his head.

“Then we need to find something to put over your leg,” he says. “And then _we_ are taking a shower, and _then_ we're going to bed.”

Steve lets James lead the way, and James takes leading the way as slowly as Steve needs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When we went to see Cap 2 and Steve spoke in French to Batroc, I just about levitated out of my seat – my favourite headcanon up to that point was that Steve would be good with languages, and hearing that the people of Marvel thought so too was awesome. (I got the same feeling when Steve cartwheeled off a balcony and smacked off a roof in CACW but I haven't posted that one yet, so I shouldn't be jumping up and down about it.) He fought a war in Europe and has the serum, so he's definitely going to pick some of those things up, right? And I figure that someone with Steve's intelligence and inquisitiveness would continue to learn languages if he's got an affinity for it. 
> 
> When speaking to Lingwei, Steve says, _”Good morning, Lingwei. For the benefit of my colleagues,_ we will speak in English.”
> 
>  **Spoiler alert:** If you'd like to know the dates in this series, here's [a link to a timeline](https://66.media.tumblr.com/aac4be76b217f7b6ea54592e0a76d168/tumblr_inline_pg5mcewTA21rckout_500.png) of the first ten parts, with a short summary of each part. **Spoilers for parts 1-10, though.**

**Author's Note:**

> “Birds in their little nests agree” comes from a poem [written by Isaac Watts in 1715 ](https://writingexplained.org/idiom-dictionary/birds-in-their-little-nests-agree), and became a now-seldom used idiom which was taught to me by my Nan, who was born in the early 20th century, meaning basically 'stop squabbling.' She left me many things, my favourites of which are the memories I have of her. 
> 
> A Captain America [really did misjudge a swing and go into the side of a building](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/custom/Blog_Images/CapRusso.jpg), but it wasn't Steve Rogers. Still though, would you put it past him?


End file.
